At this time, precious little is known about the adware threat called Thespacezone. It was first discovered on August 26 of 2008. It may or may not be associated with the website called www.thespacezone.com. One thing is for sure, you don’t want it.

Thespacezone is typically transmitted as part of a software bundle, usually freeware. Most of the buzz about people getting infected with this program is on gaming boards, so it would appear that it is mostly associated with gaming software.

Thespacezone is also associated with the Trojan Downloader called QQhelper. While some antispyware programs consider them synonymous, they actually just have a tendency to appear together. QQhelper merely downloads Thespacezone.

Thespacezone itself is a Dropper program, also called a pop up generator. It may or may not have spyware capabilities, depending on the update and who you ask. I tend to take a simplistic approach and count adware and spyware both as things that you don’t want. I see no reason to differentiate them when they both need to go away.

As I just mentioned, Thespacezone has several versions. It also shows up in scans by different names. It is also known by Agent.NDL.3, VN.176, and has versions .b and .b.1. That’s a pretty rapid update rate for a bug that’s been around for only a few months.

As far as our research shows, Thespacezone doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the website by the same name. It may be that the developer of the adware saw the website and liked the name. Thespacezone.com is basically harmless, as it provides links to other legitimate services.

Thespacezone, like all adware, runs in the background on your computer, waiting for you to open your browser. Once you do, it begins to generate pop up ads. This activity, whether you’re surfing or not, drains your computer’s virtual memory. Programs run slower. Some crash. Your computer itself may crash.

ZookaWare PC Cleaner was made to deal with problems like this. Thespacezone doesn’t have a prayer against us.